ARMY
REJECTS PLACEMENT OF MEMORIAL IN ARLINGTON NATIONAL CEMETERY21
December 2007

The
Army rejected plans to use Arlington National Cemetery as the site for
a memorial to 40 soldiers killed in a plane crash in Australia during World
War II.

The
B-17C Flying Fortress crashed at Bakers Creek near Mackay in Queensland
in 1943, marking what officials called the deadliest crash in Australian
history and the worst single plane crash in the Southwest Pacific in World
War II.

A
group of volunteers with ties to the crash, the Bakers Creek Memorial Association,
raised private money for the memorial and helped locate family members
to tell them the circumstances of their relatives' deaths. Six of the victims
were from Pennsylvania.

But
the memorial has been without a permanent home since it was unveiled last
year. The Australian Embassy has housed it on its grounds in Washington,
but that is considered foreign soil.

Pennsylvania
Sens. Arlen Specter and Bob Casey, Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill, and
two other senators wrote the Army asking that the memorial be placed at
Arlington or another appropriate location such as Fort Myer, Va.

John
Paul Woodley Jr., assistant secretary of the Army, wrote McCaskill back
last month saying that placing the memorial at Arlington would take away
"ever-decreasing land that is needed for burial purposes."

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while Fort Myer had been considered, Woodley said the best option is placing
it at the Air Force's national museum at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base
in Ohio. He said the Air Force has agreed to ship it to Ohio.

Bob
Cutler, executive director of the Bakers Creek Memorial Association, said
Friday the group is weighing its options. The Army long kept the circumstances
of the deaths secret, he said, and it should pay tribute to the soldiers
on Army property.

"This
is a small, small issue but it means a lot to 40 families who have old
business with the Army," Cutler said. "They can do better."

While
family members were notified of their loved ones' deaths, the circumstances
of the crash were kept secret for decades.

The
bomber, which had been converted to a transport plane, had been shuttling
troops back to New Guinea who had taken leave on the beaches in Australia.
One soldier survived.

Documents
related to the crash weren't declassified until 15 years after the war
ended, but even then the families weren't given additional information.
At the time of the war, the military didn't want it known that U.S. troops
were in the area of the crash.

The
memorial group and Pennsylvania's two senators said it was the deadliest
crash in Australian history and the worst single plane crash in the Southwest
Pacific in World War II.

The
memorial is about five feet high and four feet wide. The base is made of
Queensland pink granite donated by the Australian government. There is
a similar memorial in Australia.